Warwick’s unsettling similarities with South Park

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] year abroad really makes you see things in a different perspective. It clarified for me what I dislike and do not understand about the way our campus operates. The change in mood was like one of those movies where a guy goes back to his hometown and realises it’s being run by drug dealers.

The first thing I noticed was how much of a bubble it is, and how little there is to actually do compared to living in a city. I know people always say “join a society it will be really great” but I don’t really fancy sitting in a circle with people I don’t know, with some white-shirted lad telling me when to drink. Some people like this small, village vibe, but I personally find it stultifying, and prefer the boulevards and long streets of Berlin, where I was an Erasmus student.

In Berlin people already knew the things that we are taking so long to find out. You don’t discuss feminism all the time, because it is a given. You don’t talk about equality because there is already so much diversity. And you don’t talk about LGBT issues in quite the same detail because the city is already renowned for its awesome queer vibe.

But is what I am saying already a fallacy? Isn’t a city naturally going to be much more diverse, because it’s much bigger? To some extent it is, but the comparison shows that Warwick can be a pretty infantile place. A key example: Maryam Namazie – a prominent anti-extremist speaker – was blocked from speaking at our university for fear of offending Muslims. Thankfully that decision was overturned after fierce condemnation. Personally I think the assumption that people would be offended by someone speaking out against extremist movements is actually more offensive.

She started her speech with the now famous words: “The days when unconditional free expression were championed by universities as a cornerstone of all rights is long gone.” She’s absolutely correct. Later this same term, a young idiot named George Lawlor wrote a poorly phrased article in The Tab against the Warwick “I Heart Consent” workshops. He basically said that he wasn’t the kind of person who would rape someone, and found the invitation to go “the biggest insult I’ve received in a good few years”. His article was stupid, especially when the amount of women on campus who are sexually abused is quite horrifying. I myself could have benefited from these courses back in the day, having received minimal information from my school. Most intellectual people can agree he is wrong.

The attacks on him will stop other reasonable intellectuals from writing their own slightly unpopular opinions.

So he’s an idiot, but he’s also an idiot who is allowed to express his opinion whether you like it or not. Thankfully there were a number of decent articles in The Boar and elsewhere which exposed his fallacious logic. But sadly, some students took it upon themselves to bully him instead – shouting “rapist” at him, driving him out of bars, and repeatedly abusing him on the internet. Whatever he did or did not say – and he isn’t exactly writing on Return Of Kings – he does not deserve to be treated in this way. It astounds me that people do not see that the way they are bullying him is also a violent act taking place without his consent. And no, I am not equating that with rape, I’m just saying that in doing so you are being a bit of a hypocrite. The scarier implication is that the attacks on him will stop other reasonable intellectuals from writing their own slightly unpopular opinions. Surely we want newspapers that encourage all points of view, and not just the views of the majority?

In Warwick, like so many campuses across the world, there was a good old battle of ideas, in which fair, liberal values won. But now it has gone very sour – so we are now no longer a university that is grounded in any actual reality other than our backwards “Safe Spaces”. All a “Safe Space” does is create a fantasy land in which you ignore other people’s opinions. For the best dissection of everything that is wrong with PC culture, watch the latest season of South Park – which creates a dystopic situation from what is going on in this world. It may take place at a school in Colorado, but the parallels with Warwick University are unsettling.

This safe space environment helps no one.

The point of a liberal society is that in order to be free you also have to tolerate the opinions of people you do not like. Free speech applies to all – not just to the left-wing. Yes this means you have to tolerate the opinions of people like Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins and other awful human beings, but it also means you are free to say whatever you want without fear of being silenced. Isn’t this ultimately, more important?

So what am I trying to say? I think the famous quote from Matt Stone comes to mind: “I hate conservatives but I really fucking hate liberals”. The reason I hate liberals more is because they are supposed to be smart, and they’re really letting the side down for the rest of us reasonably smart people. So come at me. Please. Use your buzzwords. Call me “white” and “privileged” even though it has little relation to what I just wrote. Just try and respond with your own personal intellect, and not with groupthink. If you abuse me, or brand me something I am not, you will only prove my point. Use your brain. You are capable of your own opinion. You do go to Warwick after all.